Press Release

06/14/2007 3:45 PM ET

Alex Cora and Boston Action Team high school leaders go to bat for inner city youth

MLBPA Press Release

BOSTON -- Alex Cora of the Boston Red Sox teamed up with Volunteers of America and high school student leaders from the Boston Action Team youth volunteer corps today to highlight the need for meaningful summer volunteer activities for Boston youth. Cora joined several local high school students who are members of the Boston Action Team at Fenway High School to encourage inner city youth to get involved in their communities by volunteering in and around Boston during the summer. Volunteers of Americas programs in Massachusetts support and empower the areas most vulnerable groups, including at-risk youth, adults and adolescents in recovery from substance abuse, and elders in need of affordable housing and mental health services.

Its a great honor to join the Boston Action Team Captains to help promote summertime volunteering activities, said Cora. Summertime is a great time for high school students to support causes they believe in, and to help some of their neighbors in need. The Boston Action Team Captains have done a great job getting their peers to volunteer, and all Major Leaguers are extremely proud of the job Action Team high school students all across the country are doing to help train and inspire the next generation of volunteers.

Administered by Volunteers of America and the Major League Baseball Players Trust, the Action Team program was created to encourage young people throughout the United States to volunteer in their communities. Action Teams, consisting of Major League baseball players and area high school student Team Captains, are working together in Boston, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York City, Oakland, Philadelphia, Portland (ME), San Francisco and Seattle. Volunteers of America and the Major League Baseball Players Trust are planning to expand the Action Team program to Cincinnati, Houston, Indianapolis, Mobile and Washington D.C. during the 2007-08 school year. To date, Action Teams across the country have inspired more than 9,000 high school students to help more than 38,000 people in need by volunteering in their communities.

An Action Team-related, school-based curriculum developed in partnership with The Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition carries the message of volunteerism and teaches valuable community service skills to 700,000 high school students in more than 5,000 classrooms across the United States.